Field of the Invention
The presently claimed invention relates to virtual storage. More specifically, the claimed invention relates to creating virtual storage pools from multiple storage elements.
Description of the Related Art
Virtual storage pools are constructed from virtual devices and are used to help satisfy the growing storage requirements of many companies. Virtual devices are constructed from block devices that store data in blocks. Examples of block devices include hard drive partitions, files, and even entire hard drives, as well as other components.
Though useful when up and running, a virtual pool can be difficult to configure. Virtual storage pools are often distributed over several devices, and therefore require that each device is identified and associated with a virtual device and corresponding virtual pool. The actual block devices which make up each virtual device are tracked by an operating system of a server or controller and are generally referred to by computer generated addresses—typically a hexadecimal string of characters. When setting up a virtual storage pool, a user manually links physical drive locations to logical names presented by the operating system. The manual linking process involves accessing a list of all available block devices, such as hard drives expressed as a computer generated address, selecting one of the computer generated addresses to “blink” a particular drive (i.e., determine what drive corresponds to the computer generated address), and assigning the drive that blinks to a desired virtual storage pool.
When virtual pools are created from large numbers of block devices, it can be difficult and time consuming to create the manual “drive blinking” and the abstract computer generated addresses, and errors in virtual pool creation often result. What is needed is a more efficient method for creating virtual storage pools.